As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I rely on software program and automation to enhance operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it certainly caught my interest GoHighLevel Email Templates.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to simplify and scale my business, it felt like a dream come true on paper. Who would not want a single remedy that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business requirements, with any luck you can gain from my painful mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to make use of and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist local business keep their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making certain leads and clients receive the right messages at the correct time. Usage internet site and social media forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple consultation scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and boost profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive customer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on enhancing sales procedures and nurturing client connections with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it particularly eye-catching for services aiming to consolidate their technology stack.
Generally, it just functioned reliably with very little fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without concerns.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I obtained seduced by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when every person’s speaking about a new tool that will revolutionize your organization … The yard usually looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower friction points that I ‘d learned to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, but a few even more stress led me to assume maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching platforms was going to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially restoring my entire technology framework from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s a review of simply several of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– and also handling shed productivity during the button.
But inevitably, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-lasting remedy for my business, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a large blunder. The issues started piling up promptly, till it reached a factor I had to reduce my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish issues I ran into.
Protection Issues & Several Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event tips, taking care of subscription expirations and much more.
Whatever seemed to be working penalty … up until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 completely unimportant e-mails had actually been sent out to users who ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This took place three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically tried troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. But the issue lingered.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they vaguely declared “web server concerns” were to blame. But this explanation didn’t make any kind of feeling, because the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was completely unacceptable and simply didn’t benefit my organization. I have hundreds of calls counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely undependable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these problems …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and challenging.
Easy jobs like editing workflows entailed digging via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various sections. Moving between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to take care of general, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person who values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the small cost tag featured expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Email Templates
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the cost effective rate for access to so many features. Yet I swiftly learned this inexpensive base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic fees for core capability. Instantly my bank card declarations had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an e-mail through their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to numerous bucks in unanticipated costs.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel registration wound up costing dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, yet just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open rates drop virtually overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open price.
No matter how much I enhanced my sending methods or attempted every fixing method, I can hardly push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Email Templates.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had terrible involvement. The only thing I can assume that would be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden fees, busted features, and terrible interface, I had ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a big mistake. The cons considerably outweighed any type of advantages.
No software is perfect, but the sheer volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to deal with essential functions properly or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing substantial time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging call to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. However in knowledge, it educated me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software application frequently covers bigger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed tools should make your job life easier, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Transparency develops depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys depend on.
- Seek objective testimonials. Happy assistance evaluates indicate less if extreme issues suggest poor general functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No single solution can perfectly satisfy every special business demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step renovations usually outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
Basically, I found out to be much more hesitant of “as well great to be true” marketing claims and much less attracted by the attraction of glossy brand-new objects. The tools you utilize daily must make count on with openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.